Go, Read: Paul Kupperberg On Stan Lee Vs. Jack KirbyThere are about 15 different things in this article by Paul Kupperberg on Stan Lee vs. Jack Kirby with which I'd disagree, but I thought it a fascinating snapshot of a certain kind of comics professional orientation towards these issues. He's right in that Jonathan Ross did everyone a favor by getting Stan Lee to step away from his usual line about this stuff and speak more plainly about his feelings regarding creative ownership. I think it's also always worth noting that one of the reasons that the specific act of creative authorship is so heavily debated in a way that similar acts of creation in other media aren't is because the value that Stan Lee placed on being an idea man that might be able to find work in Hollywood doing something similar, and the subsequent discovery a few decades later that these ideas had value as entertainment concepts in and of themselves. I'm probably also directly opposed to what I see as an underlying theme to these articles. I think if we're never going to know what really happened -- and we're not going to in a way that satisfies barring a remarkable change in story from Lee -- then a lot of combative back and forth that asserts the value of those historically left out is healthy, not a sign of fan pathology or general unpleasantness.